


Danger Close

by harper_m



Series: Sorties [2]
Category: Covert Affairs
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:42:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harper_m/pseuds/harper_m
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's an affair, nothing more, but it still feels good to find Joan there waiting on her, worried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Danger Close

**Author's Note:**

> If infidelity bothers you, you should eject.

At the very least, Joan had been thoughtful enough to leave evidence of her breaking and entering, so Annie wasn’t completely surprised. It was deliberate, no doubt, because she sincerely doubted that Joan would let herself devolve into mediocrity. Not that it completely obviated her surprise, of course, because the last uninvited guest she expected to find sitting in her darkened guest house was her supervisor.

“I could have shot you,” she muttered, reengaging the safety on her Glock.

“You wouldn’t have.” Joan was all calm and efficiency, legs crossed primly and hands resting in her lap. “How are you?”

Annie thought she detected the barest trace of worry.

“I’ve been better.” She had tender ribs, an array of bruises, and eye that was going to ghost the faintest hint of black, but that was nothing out of the ordinary for her. True, she’d come closer to getting shot than she preferred, but that was the nature of the business. “What are you doing here?”

“I can’t be interested in your wellbeing?”

“In a capacity other than professional?” Annie asked, toeing out of her shoes. She rolled stiff shoulders and arched her back to a series of satisfying pops. Her tone was sharper than she wanted. “It’s probably not a good idea.”

Joan’s expression remained impassive, leaving Annie feeling childish. She’d entered into this as a consenting adult well aware the contingencies. The situation had obvious parameters, parameters which she’d chosen to accept, but that didn’t mean she fit comfortably within them. Joan had a husband; at the end of the day, she went home to him.

Her Glock made a dull thunk as she placed it down on the table, suddenly tired. “I’m sorry,” she said, tugging her shirt free. Her suit was wrinkled and streaked with dirt, and she felt as disheveled as she undoubtedly looked. “It’s been a long day.”

Joan rose smoothly, a move so elegant that she might as well have been wearing one of her Jackie-O dresses. Instead, off duty and in her navy v-neck cashmere sweater and wide-leg white pants, she could have just as easily have been sipping espresso in a bistro in Paris.

Anger coalesced and released in Annie’s gut.

“I can see that.” Joan’s hands were on her collarbones, smoothing up toward her shoulders under the lapels of her jacket and somehow, unaccountably, calming. She was the eye of the hurricane personified, and Annie felt herself being drawn in despite herself. “It’s sometimes very difficult to be the one in the office, waiting.”

Her voice had gone soft in a way that made Annie’s chest tighten.

As much as Annie told herself she didn’t want to get drawn into a competition about which of them had suffered most that day, it was instinct. To recognize the coded message in Joan’s words was to delve dangerously close to acknowledging that this meant something more than a string of meaningless encounters, and there was no hope to be found there. At least, not for her. To sleep with her married boss was one thing. To allow herself to fall for Joan was quite another.

It was easier to channel everything into aggression than it was to parse and process it.

“Oh?” she asked, tone deceptively neutral. Her hands found Joan’s hips, and she pulled her close. They were eye to eye, nose to nose, mouth to mouth. “Did you have a hard day?”

She didn’t want an answer, so she didn’t wait for one. Joan’s lips parted under hers, a challenge met; there was no give, only take, and the adrenaline that had subsided in the wake of her earlier fight spiked again with a definitive kick. Fuck parity – not that they’d ever really had it. She’d already won once that day, and she was going to do it again.

She pulled away from the kiss, keeping out of Joan’s range even when she chased. “You’re in my house,” she said, hands working on Joan’s pants. She snapped free the button and took care of the zipper with a hard, quick tug that felt as if it might tear through fabric. “You’re going to play by my rules.”

A hint of a smirk played at Joan’s lips. They’d play this out, then.

Joan was strong, Annie knew, but she was stronger – stronger and faster, without the edge of rust that came with riding a desk. She shrugged out of her jacket in a slow, deliberate movement, eyes never leaving Joan’s. Her shoulder holster followed; her various aches and pains faded away, replaced by a tightly coiled anticipation. She let it spread through her – this was another battle she would win – filling all of the dark spaces and hidden cracks.

They moved at the same time, as if an unseen clock had started. Joan’s hands were on the collar of her shirt, clenching and pulling, and she could already hear thread popping one strand at a time. It was a show of power, not an exploitation of vulnerability, and futile. Annie had plenty of vulnerabilities, some of them easily exploited, but she was used to power.

In a fight, Annie would go for the places where she could cause the most damage – the eyes, the neck, the ears, the groin. In a game in which she was often physically outmatched, she had to take every opportunity she could get.

The fingers of one hand wound into the soft hair at the nape of Joan’s neck, tightened, and pulled hard. The other slid into the open vee of Joan’s pants, under panties and into wetness. Her lips found Joan’s neck and applied just enough suction for Joan to forget herself and loosen her grip. It was a skirmish, but not the battle, even with the hum of Joan’s moan against her lips.

“The bed is behind you,” Annie said, voice low. “That is what you’re here for, isn’t it?”

Joan’s eyes narrowed sharply, but Annie wasn’t intimidated. Instead, she pulled a little harder, found Joan’s clit, wet and slippery and hard against her fingertips. Reckless thoughts chased through her mind – use her teeth, suck a little harder, rend cloth. Leave her mark behind and let Joan find some way to explain it away, if explanations were even required. She didn’t know what kind of arrangement, if any, Joan and Arthur might have, but maybe he already knew where his wife was. Maybe he knew everything and just didn’t care.

They’d never done this here, in her house. It was always rushed, always secret, always just this side of uncomfortable. And so, surprised by the luxury of time, Annie watched Joan tumble onto the bed and paused, committing to memory the sight. Joan’s hair was mussed and her lips swollen, her sweater askew and her pants gaping open and halfway down her hips. She’d lost a shoe and was breathing hard, the look in her eyes conflicted and impossible to read. Annie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, imagining an evening that wasn’t. She saw the two of them huddled close in a restaurant, shrouded by flickering candlelight and smiling at one another with the promise of an evening soon to become intimate. She would have looked at her sister’s house as she’d pulled into the drive, searching for lighted windows as she led Joan across the drive, fingers entwined, and the tension between them would have built as she unlocked the door. They would have kissed as soon as they crossed the threshold, all of the pent up energy of the evening needing immediate release, and from there it would have been a feverish trip over to the bed.

She opened her eyes and let fantasy catch up with reality. There was expectation in Joan’s eyes. She was waiting warily to see what would happen next, and Annie’s heart relocated to her throat. Joan didn’t cede power – it had never happened – and yet there she was, waiting.

Annie caught Joan’s heel, slipping her remaining shoe off and letting it tumble to the floor. She could feel the smile on her face, probably more satisfied than she should have allowed, but she could see the rest of the evening playing out before her. “Help me with these,” she said, tugging at Joan’s pants. When Joan did, when she lifted her hips and let her efforts join Annie’s, Annie’s heart started to race.

Her hands went to the top remaining button on her shirt. With Joan’s full attention focused intently on her, she flicked it open. She continued down the row with deliberation before undoing the last; when she reached it, she paused. Joan licked her lips, the move unconscious, and Annie felt something like triumph spread through her. She slipped the shirt off, letting it fall to her elbows before shrugging out of it, each movement as slow and languorous as if they had all night. Her bra was next – the flick of the clasp, innocently catching it to her chest before slowly letting it fall – and she could almost see the strain it was causing Joan to remain still.

Once she was naked, she knelt on the bed. Joan met her halfway, already pulling her sweater over her head. Her fingers slid through Annie’s hair and her kisses had a desperate quality to them – forceful, as if she could no longer contain herself – and had Joan been anyone else, Annie would have laughed with the joy of the moment. Instead, she fumbled with the clasp of Joan’s bra, separating only long enough to remove it. Her thigh insinuated between Joan’s legs and she could feel her, wet and hot through the flimsy silk of her underwear. It was easier than she expected to lower Joan back to the mattress; only the smallest of movements, and Joan melted underneath her. She continued kissing her, as if that was their only goal that night. Kissing was the thing she was so rarely allowed to do. It was too messy, too imprecise. It was the thing that could get them caught. When done well, it left behind signs that were inescapable, and Joan did it very well. They did it very well together.

“Were you worried?” Annie asked, her lips at Joan’s ear. She nipped at the curve of it, licked and blew softly, and reveled in the way Joan shuddered against her. Joan’s grip on her tightened, fingers digging into her shoulders. A warning, maybe, that she’d crossed over a line. She nipped again, harder, and Joan moaned. “Were you?”

“Annie,” Joan said, her voice strained and little more than a whisper. Annie pulled back and looked at her. A tilt of her head and their foreheads would be touching. Another, and she’d be kissing Joan again. Joan’s hand slid up her shoulder to the back of her neck, and it was a soft touch, something she didn’t allow from Annie herself. Annie’s breath quickened and she blinked, the intensity of Joan’s stare suddenly too much, but the hand on the back of her neck kept her in place when she would have looked away. Joan smiled, something in it on the edge of broken, and Annie thought of candlelight dinners, holding hands, and the silent, secret language of lovers. “Of course I was.”

She dropped forward, forehead balanced against Joan’s, with Joan’s fingers stroking the back of her neck softly. It hurt, in a way her ribs and all of the other little aches and pains didn’t. Arthur, she told herself. Waiting for Joan at home, the face she was going to see before she turned out the light every night, and that was not going to be Annie’s life.

Joan was breathing softly, still. Waiting.

Annie felt silly, blinking back tears.

The press of Joan’s hand against her shoulder was light, a suggestion instead of a command, and as much as Annie wanted to follow through on the threat implicit in her earlier words – her house, her rules – she didn’t have the strength for it. She allowed the light pressure to push her back, and seconds later, their positions were flipped. She spread her legs instinctively, letting Joan settle between them, and tilted her chin up for the kiss she knew was coming. It was soft and sweet and so not like them it hurt.

“Let me take care of you,” Joan whispered against her ear, and this time, the shiver came from her.

Joan’s lips moved to her neck, a light tease that had Annie winding her hands in Joan’s hair. She arched her neck, a silent entreaty for more, but Joan moved at her own pace and with an intent that Annie couldn’t sway despite the way she yanked and pulled, the way she arched her body against Joan’s. Her trail was slow and deliberate – neck, breasts, stomach – and when, finally, she hooked her arms under Annie’s thighs and tilted her hips up, Annie could have sobbed with relief.

It wasn’t that their affair was a one-way street, but there had always been roles, at least the way Annie had seen it. She was accustomed to sinking to her knees in front of Joan, to the taste of Joan on her tongue as she dug her fingers into Joan’s hips. Sometimes she was rewarded and sometimes she wasn’t. That was the nature of affairs, and of the ever present danger that increased with each minute ticked past. The tension in the air, that feeling that they’d tripped too close to the edge and that discovery was inevitable if they indulged further, was something she’d always trusted. She’ll pull away, sometimes aching and unsatisfied, and straighten her collar and smooth out her skirt. Joan would watch her carefully, and sometimes she’d see a promise of later in her eyes and sometimes she wouldn’t, but it didn’t matter. There would always be a later on the horizon, and anyway, it made it more, somehow, the frustrated incompletion. The next time was sweeter for the anticipation.

But this, Joan’s tongue between her legs… It was a gift she’d never been granted before. She untangled a hand from Joan’s hair and planted it on the mattress, bicep straining as she pushed herself up, and Joan was looking up at her, smiling against her. She closed her eyes, sure that if she looked any longer this would be over, and quickly. With a muffled whimper, she fell back. She slid her feet up, knees bending, until she had enough traction to push her hips up, the hand that had been supporting her now gripping the edge of the mattress above her head.

She nearly cried out when Joan pulled away.

“No one can hear you,” Joan said, something in her tone urgent. “Let _me_.”

When the meaning hit her, Annie tightened her grip on Joan’s hair and moaned. Not a fake one, not one to appease, but what she was feeling, with Joan between her legs, here, in her bed. Her reward was immediate; Joan drew her clit into her mouth and sucked rhythmically. Much more and that would have been it for her. She would have come, thrashing and screaming.

Joan gentled. She used her tongue to soothe and tease, indulgently, like they had all night. Soon, Annie let go of her grip on the mattress and wrapped her hand in her own hair, pulling hard as her head pressed back against the pillow, needing the kind of grounding she wasn’t going to be able to find. She’d been having sex in silence for so long that she’d forgotten how freeing it could be. She’d forgotten what she sounded like, forgotten the soft and distinctly feminine noises she made, high-pitched and needy and foreign even to her own ears. And with each of them, Joan’s arms tightened around her and her tongue quickened. Not enough and not for long – Joan was toying with her, drawing her close to orgasm and then letting the edge fall away – but with a constancy that had Annie’s muscles trembling.

When Joan decided to give her relief, it came in the press of fingers inside of her and a hard, unforgiving tongue against her clit. She pressed her hand against the back of Joan’s head, unable to stifle the impulse, rocked her hips against her face, and tried not to think of how thoroughly she’d been undone. She came with a shuddering, surprised _‘Oh, fuck’_ , and a vague realization that maybe she’d never get over it.

Moments later, Joan kissed her and she kissed back on impulse, still so caught up in her orgasm that everything else was vague and fuzzy. When it started to melt away, the kiss sharpened. She tasted herself on Joan’s lips and tongue and brought her hands to Joan’s cheeks, trapping her there. Joan was still inside her – more fingers now, and she was deliciously full, but she didn’t remember when it happened – and the angle was just right. Just right, and Joan was inside of her and on top of her, kissing her, and she’d probably never have this again. They’d be back to empty interrogation rooms and supply closets tomorrow, no kisses, no marks, and no noises.

She moved clumsily, not quite back in control of herself, her fingers digging a path down Joan’s ribs and over her hip. The fit between them was tight, her wrist bumping against Joan’s, but Joan’s legs spread for her and they made it work, arms pressed side by side. Her fingers slid against Joan’s clit, rougher than she intended, but enough for Joan to gasp against her lips. She did what she could and Joan’s hips thrusting against her fingers helped, and soon, Joan was biting her bottom lip hard enough for it to sting, whimpering and panting. Her eyes clenched shut and her head reared back, but Annie was damned if she was going to come (again) first.

“Please,” she said, not caring that she was begging. “Joan, please.”

And Joan buried her face against Annie’s neck and let go. Annie felt the sharp bite of teeth, cried out with arousal and surprise, and followed.

Later, when the air conditioner kicked on in the background and Annie stirred, reached down for the sheet only to hiss when she laid down again, the second she’d been gone long enough to chill the sweat-soaked fabric, the night settled over her. Joan was pressed against her side, breathing slow and deep in sleep. Her hair was a mess, tousled and tangled, and her lips were red and swollen. The places where their skin met were slick with sweat, and maybe it was a trick of the light, but Annie thought she saw a perfect row of fingertips disappearing over the curve of Joan’s shoulder.

She reached out, pushing Joan’s hair back to get a better look, and Joan shifted. Her eyelids fluttered open and she blinked, a brief moment of puzzlement flitting across her brow.

“Annie?” she asked, reaching up to rub a hand over her face. “How long have I been asleep?”

Annie pulled the sheet up higher against the room’s growing chill. “Not long,” she said, feeling the stillness slip away.

Joan pushed up, lithe and gorgeous in the faint light coming in from outside. “I should go,” she said distractedly, already searching for her clothes.

 _Stay_ , Annie wanted to say, but didn’t.

Maybe Joan saw the longing on her face because her own softened. She leaned over, hair falling over her shoulder. Her kiss was sweet. It lingered long enough for Annie to think that maybe Joan had changed her mind, and she began to stir, to slip her arms around Joan’s waist and pull her back down.

Joan pulled away, still so close that Annie could feel the words as she spoke them. “I should go.” She slipped out of Annie’s arms and off of the bed and Annie laid back, feeling a dull ache start in her ribs.

Dressed, Joan looked almost put together. She disappeared into the bathroom, and Annie heard the sound of running water. She imagined being washed away, of Joan using her washcloths to scrub off any traces of her and her hairbrush to work through the tangles she’d left behind. She pictured Joan studying herself in Annie’s mirror, looking for missed details that might get her caught.

The light clicked off and Joan was at the foot of her bed, and if she tried hard enough, Annie was sure she could still see the indelible, tell-tale signs of having been fucked.

She smiled.

“Annie,” Joan said, her voice a sigh.

“I know. You have to go.”

Joan hesitated before nodding. She moved jerkily, as if her body had made a decision her mind hadn’t agreed to, and sat on the edge of Annie’s bed. Annie closed her eyes as Joan pushed her hair back over her forehead, imagining the woman doing it wasn’t saying her good-byes.

“You need to be more careful with yourself,” Joan said softly from somewhere close by. Annie opened her eyes in time to see Joan close the distance between them. This kiss, like the one before it, lingered.

“Careful,” Annie said, voice hoarse. “Say things like that, and I might start to think you care.”

Joan’s smile was wistful. “Say things like that, and I might start to think you want me to. And that,” she said, running her thumb over Annie’s bottom lip, “would be a dangerous state of affairs.”

Annie wasn’t stupid. Before she’d been pulled up to the Agency, she’d been top of her class.

She smiled brightly, the dutiful subordinate. “Of course.”

As Joan slipped out of the door, she thought about showering, about washing away the traces Joan had left behind. Instead, she ended up staring at herself in the mirror, the light stinging her eyes.

Her ribs were blackening, as were her eyes. There was a band across her upper arm as well, though she didn’t remember the injury that had caused it. The red on the curve of her neck was new, though, and closer inspection showed the faint indentation of teeth marks. It could be hidden, of course, should she so choose. Annie put her fingers to it, pressed hard and felt the dull ache.

She pulled a button-down out of her closet for the next day, one with a stiff, starched collar that sometimes pulled far enough away from her skin to make discovery a possibility. Maybe she’d bend over Joan’s desk and let her see, watch for excitement, fear, or a blankness too well trained to falter.

Or maybe she’d play the game like a good girl just a little while longer.


End file.
